Police chase ends with two arrests

Police arrested two people after a high-speed rush-hour chase Monday night through the Northland and Kansas City, Kan.

The chase started around 5:15 p.m. near 89th Street and North Oak Trafficway, when officers saw a man who looked familiar to them, said Officer Darin Snapp, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department.

Snapp said a computer check revealed that the man, a 39-year-old from Independence, had many felony warrants in Missouri and Kansas.

As the officers walked toward the man, he and a woman fled in a red Jeep Wrangler. Police later learnned that the vehicle had been stolen.

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For the next half-hour, the man drove the wrong way at times on thoroughfares and erratically through residential areas, reaching speeds of up to 92 mph.

One of the people in the car waved a gun at someone, police dispatchers said.

Police cars backed off the Jeep after it entered congested residential areas near Interstate 29 and Northwest 64th Street, leaving police and TV news helicopters to track the car.

The Jeep continued at high speeds, plowing down fences in people’s back yards.

The Jeep entered Kansas City, Kan. around 5:45 p.m. with what appeared to be a piece of wooden fence lodged in its windshield. Kansas City, Kan., police took up the chase and followed the vehicle to a building near 30th Street and Brown Avenue.

Officers immediately took the female passenger into custody. The male driver was on the roof of a building. Police held him at gunpoint before he was arrested, dispatchers said.